How political adverts will look after the release of the new tools, on the Facebook app and Instagram.
Photograph: Facebook

Facebook will no longer allow British political groups to publish “dark ads” on its network, in an attempt to restore public trust after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and questions over its influence on the Brexit referendum.

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Political advertisers will also be required to prove their identity, as the social network launches a set of tools to ensure transparency before local elections next year.

As part of the changes, all paid-for political content will be automatically published in a public advertising library for up to seven years, ending the practice where adverts are visible only to those who are targeted by them. Facebook will also reveal the number of people who saw the ad, the money spent on it and the age, location and gender of the recipients.

Facebook will not, however, reveal how the advert was targeted beyond those broad demographics, meaning political advertisers can continue to target messages to specific groups in secret using keywords and interests.

Any individual or organisation running adverts with political content will be forced to register and verify their identity by 7 November, a rule Facebook intends to enforce using human and machine moderation.

The transparency overhaul will also apply to political adverts on Facebook-owned Instagram and enable political rivals to see the messages their opponents are promoting, making it easier for journalists and the public to hold politicians to account.

Unlike in the US, where the political transparency features were launched this year, the British iteration will not require adverts on political issues to be labelled and registered.

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Instead, the company is taking a narrow view, requiring registration for ads “that reference political figures, political parties, elections, legislation before Parliament and past referenda that are the subject of national debate”.

This means that while adverts on topics such as Brexit will be made public in the ad archive, promotions on general topics such as immigration will not be covered.

Individuals can register as political advertisers by uploading a scan of their UK driving licence or UK or EU passport, which will grant them a 21-day temporary registration. To be cleared fully, they must wait for Facebook to post a letter to a UK postal address, in order to prove they have a physical presence in the country.

“We see this as an important part of ensuring electoral integrity and helping people understand who they are engaging with,” said the Facebook executives who announced the move, Richard Allan and Rob Leathern, in a blogpost.

“We recognise that this is going to be a significant change for people who use our service to publish this type of ad. While the vast majority of ads on Facebook are run by legitimate organisations, we know that there are bad actors that try to misuse our platform. By having people verify who they are, we believe it will help prevent abuse.”

Controversially, Facebook will continue to include news organisations in the archive if they pay to promote stories involving political topics. The UK is only the third country in which Facebook has rolled out the features, after the US and Brazil.

The government is considering whether to back calls from the Electoral Commission and legislate to require a public archive of all online political adverts.

Google and Twitter have launched similar advertising transparency operations in the US. Twitter, which declined to give a timeline for when it would roll out those tools to the UK, said: “Our new Ads Transparency Centre provides users with insight and clarity into every single ad that runs on the service.”

Google declined to comment, but a person familiar with the company’s plans said it was focusing on launching tools before the European parliament elections in May – with the UK excluded, as it was scheduled to have left the EU by then.